Owing the generalization and popularization of smartphones, the demand for using various application and services provided by a smartphone in a vehicle is increasingly rising. Particularly, it is expected that a connectivity controller (ECU) will play an important role in providing services using an application of a smartphone among services of WI (In-Vehicle Infotainment) system.
In order to meet the consumer's needs and occupy the connectivity ECU market expected to grow rapidly, vehicle manufacturers make ongoing efforts to research and develop various connectivity ECU technologies and IVI system-to-smartphone interconnecting technologies (e.g., MirrorLink, Apple Digital iPod Out, Google Android Auto, etc.).
The connectivity ECU technologies control a connection between an IVI system and a smartphone and provide an environment for sharing an application and service of the smartphone according to a determined protocol. Hence, only a smartphone application developed on the basis of the connectivity ECU technology can provide an interconnecting function between an IVI system and a smartphone.
Therefore, in developing an application therefor, the needs for a tool for a 3rd party application developer to conveniently verify an operation of an application developed by the 3rd party application developer by easily providing a virtual environment of connecting a smartphone and an IVI system actually based on a determined protocol without a real vehicle or additional equipments are increasingly rising.